Posted on 09/06/2016 11:21:04 AM PDT by Paradox
Explanation: Follow the handle of the Big Dipper away from the dipper's bowl, until you get to the handle's last bright star. Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and you might find this stunning pair of interacting galaxies, the 51st entry in Charles Messier's famous catalog. Perhaps the original spiral nebula, the large galaxy with well defined spiral structure is also cataloged as NGC 5194. Its spiral arms and dust lanes clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (left), NGC 5195. The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and officially lie within the angular boundaries of the small constellation Canes Venatici. Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the human eye, the above long-exposure, deep-field image taken earlier this year shows much of the faint complexity that actually surrounds the smaller galaxy. Thousands of the faint dots in background of the featured image are actually galaxies far across the universe.
M51 - Whirlpool Galaxy
For a long time, astronomers insisted the smaller galaxy’s red shift indicated it was too far behind the larger galaxy for there to be any interaction whatever. I continued believing my lyin’ eyes, and today the connection is affirmed.
Beautiful!
Are you referencing Dr. Halton Arp?
He had a group of “peculiar” galaxies published back in the 1960’s. He listed many galaxies interacting and some “linked” with far distant quasars, From there he denied the Big Bang and cosmological redshift.
What does the mainstream say about his work now?
I saw the most impressive thing last night while viewing the moon. A black disk shape object the size of a large moon crater flew in front of the moon as I was observing it on 25mm lens 6” refractor. It lasted long enough for me to say WTF but once it passed the moon it disappeared in the darkness. My first solid UFO sighting.
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